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Battle of Peers
The Battle of Peers was a battle in the Flettan Rebellion of 1106 between rebels under Greg West and elements of the Army of Regina under Max Grafton. It took place on 8 June 1107. Prelude To this point in the rebellion, which had lasted for seven-and-a-half months, the rebels had continually picked up small elements of R15 Franklin Vincent's 1.35 million man army, which had been unable to supply or support itself and had suffered from woefully unprepared troops. While Xethos Stamnoudus in the south had been receiving much of the recognition for the rebel lead in the war, Greg West had quietly destroyed over half of the Army of Regina in the Battle of Anthracite and the Battle of Windermere. However, as West still had a pass to hold in the far north and Stamnoudus did not, West had ceded his cavalry under Jason Horsley to Stamnoudus. The maix est regine'al Army of Regina, though in dire straits, still featured 90,000 infantry and 27,000 cavalry and was still a threat on its own. Some ways behind it was the full strength Army of Appalachia. Rick Duthie was the most experienced commander between the two armies after Sean Rosen had lost his division to the rebels. In late May, he held a council of war with the eight remaining division commanders between the Armies of Regina and Appalachia and informed them that Horsley had gone, which had allowed his own cavalry to roam freely around the area, and that West had returned to his fort at Anthracite and was unlikely to come out. He suggested that they consolidate in or near Windermere and simply use the 315,000 infantry to grind down the rebels since all the maix est regine had was numbers. As was usual, this mass of soldiers was far more than the land could support, but every attempt Duthie made to hurry the process was hampered by constant delays from divisions from the Appalachian army stumbling over themselves to avoid beating the others to Windermere. Early in June, a citizen from the town, perhaps due to rebel sympathy and perhaps due to weariness from continued occupation, entered the fort at Anthracite and informed West that the maix est regine was attempting to consolidate nearby and had spread out somewhat to try to supply itself. West decided to try to take advantage of the situation by wiping an isolated force and returning to his fort before the enemy could react properly. His target ended up being the division under Max Grafton, which was in the farming hamlet of Peers, about 160 kilometres east of Windermere. Armies West's rebel army was much weaker than it had been since Horsley and his cavalry were gone. It was still a strong infantry contingent, split between West, Dan Anthony and Heraklios Metaxas. Between the three divisions, the rebel army fielded about 12,500 swordsmen, 8,000 pikemen and 5,100 skirmishers. Though they had started fairly evenly split in numbers, Anthony's division was lacking in comparison to the other two. Ross Jackson fielded a crew of 40 to man four ballistae. The total rebel army was listed at 25,765 troops and 4 artillery pieces. Grafton's force featured ten full 4,500 man regiments. Six of these were sword infantry, two were spear infantry and the remaining two were skirmishers for a total of 45,000 total troops. Battle West's rebels spent the night of 7 June two kilometres away from Grafton's camp and went undiscovered. On 8 June, they appeared before Grafton's disorganized army at 12:15 in two ranks, Anthony on the left, West in the centre and Metaxas on the right. Grafton's force had no immediate answer to being attacked and began fleeing in droves before West's rapid advance. As West did not have Horsley's cavalry supporting him, the vast majority were able to run far enough to regroup just outside of the city limits. West stopped in Peers to let Jackson and his artillery catch up and rest his infantry while Grafton attempted to organized his regiments. At 12:50, Grafton counter-attacked while Jackson was deploying his ballistae. It was not well coordinated and faltered under skirmisher fire. Grafton put his own skirmish regiments to firing back, but a lack of ammunition hindered their effectiveness. West ordered a counter-charge as Grafton's infantry buckled and began pushing them back rapidly. One by one, Grafton's ranks broke and dispersed and the fight was over by 13:30. Aftermath The battle was a major tactical victory and a minor strategic victory for the rebels. 74 of West's troops fell (28 killed, 46 seriously wounded) against 485 of Grafton's troops (166 killed, 319 wounded), mostly to skirmish fire. Grafton's force was not completely shattered, however, and would only need time to regroup and resupply to be returned the Army of Regina. West was unable to make proper use of his victory without Horsley to completely destroy Grafton and was anxious to return to Anthracite before word of the battle spread. The greatest effect the battle had on the war was to further frighten the maix est regine'al generals in the north and slow them down even more. With DeGrenier having abandoned the pass to the south in favour of besieging Cascyst, West decided to move into the Fletta with his own force, unwilling to risk being surrounded. He managed to converge with the other rebels armies during the Battle of Almira two weeks later.